Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Cognitive Dissonance: The Apocalyptic Poetics Of Spenser’S Faerie Queene, April Phillips Boone

Doctoral Dissertations

While sixteenth-century citizens of England and the Continent read, interpreted, and appropriated The Book of Revelation for a number of purposes, Edmund Spenser’s primary motivation was to find a source of his poetic theory and practice, as well as his poetic themes and imagery. Spenser began his literary career in 1569 with the anonymous publication of his English translation of Jan van der Noot’s Theatre for Worldlings, which concluded with four sonnets based on scenes from Revelation. My project examines the ways in which Revelation, or Apocalypse as it was frequently called in the period, remained a significant creative fountainhead …

The Roots Of Middle-Earth: William Morris's Influence Upon J. R. R. Tolkien, Kelvin Lee Massey

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines the influence of William Morris (1834-1896) upon J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973). It concentrates specifically upon the impact of Morris’s romance, The Roots of the Mountains, upon Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. After surveying the scholarly literature pertaining to this topic, it proceeds to discuss their work within the context of the nineteenth-century revival of interest in the medieval period and in folkloric and mythological narratives. It then analyzes numerous parallels between the two works in characterization; plot motifs; archaic diction, syntax, and semantics; and topographical description and reanimation are then analyzed. These parallels …

Emaricdulfe By E. C. Esquier (1595): Materials Toward A Critical Edition, Georgia Chapman Caver

Doctoral Dissertations

E. C.’s Emaricdulfe (1595; STC2 4268) is a collection of forty English sonnets introduced by a brief dedicatory epistle addressed “to my very good friends, John Zouch and Edward Fitton, Esquiers.” The book was printed by Joan Orwin for bookseller Matthew Law. Two copies of the original text survive, one in the Huntington Library, the other in the Folger Shakespeare Library. In both subject matter and poetic aspiration, the collection answers to the conventions of the sonnet sequence, a genre that captivated English poets great and small during the last decades of the sixteenth century. The subject of E. C.’s …

Unsafe: Sex And Death In Contemporary Gay Culture, Wiiliam Dustin Parrott

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the role of sex and death in contemporary gay male culture, particularly focusing on issues surrounding HIV/AIDS and “safe sex” practices, specifically bug-chasing. By analyzing relevant literature and public discourse the topic of bug-chasing, or intentional pursuit of HIV sero-conversion, is placed in appropriate context. The work of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Leo Bersani is employed in order to frame bug-chasing as a means of radical sexual self-determination which attempts to transcend the bonds of the administered bourgeois self, and ultimately results in an act of will akin to Martin Heidegger’s being-towards-death.

Empress' Story, Brandy Michelle Yates

Masters Theses

Empress' Story is a creative thesis written by Brandy Michelle Yates in partial fulfillment of the Master of Arts in English degree. Empress' Story explores four days in Empress' adolescent life in which her best friend, Roni, is raped by a deacon in the church they both attend. Empress' Story is not a coming-of-age story; instead, it focuses upon race, gender, rape, and religion in a small Southern town. The way the town handles the rape of Roni is an example of the social context and stigma that surround the deeply personal actualization of people and their actions. This thesis …

Professional Publics/Private Citizens: Human Rights Ngos And The Sponsoring Of Public Activism, Christopher Todd Minnix

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the role of human rights Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in sponsoring public deliberation and activism. Activists who take part in an NGO’s campaigns encounter a system of genres that aligns their human rights literacies and discourse with the NGO’s ideological and organizational structure. The genres that activists use thus play a powerful socializing role, placing the discourse of activists within a complex context of organizational discourse that not only embodies specific human rights exigencies, but also specific organizational rationales for addressing those exigencies. Human rights NGOs, while often reflecting an ideology of a common, unified voice for …

Finding Nature's Order: Stoicism, Humanism, And Rhetoric In Francis Bacon's New Philosophy, Susan Giesemann North

Doctoral Dissertations

Francis Bacon has long been considered a significant figure in the Scientific Revolution, but debate continues regarding the significance and quality of his contribution. Although Bacon claimed to be developing a natural philosophical movement, he contributed little to methodological or theoretical aspects of the work that would eventually become modern science. Bacon's contributions should be evaluated within the context of Renaissance humanism rather than modern science, to the extent that in arguing for a turn to natural philosophy his aims were more consistent with the broad societal goals of his fellow humanists than the more limited ambitions of those pursuing …

The Half-Life Of A Good Place: A Novel, Laura Amanda Hoffer

Doctoral Dissertations

This creative dissertation is a novel entitled The Half-life of a Good Place. Set in the twin cities of Bristol, Tennessee and Bristol, Virginia, in 1994, a year of cultural and economic change, the novel's plot develops around a search for a missing woman. The threat of violence underlying the woman's disappearance aggravates existing tensions in the towns, and the novel explores how the geographic border of the state line, with its inextricable political, social, and cultural borders, determines individual and community identity in the Bristols.

In an effort to provide a comprehensive perspective on place, chapters in the novel …

The Theory Currently Known As M, Jessica Beth Weintraub

Doctoral Dissertations

The Theory Currently Known as M is a creative dissertation for an English doctoral degree. Recent works in contemporary literature explore connections between scientific theories and the human emotions: Venn diagrams, botanical entries, and mathematical equations are numerous in theatrical successes such as David Auburn’s Proof and Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen, collections of short stories such as Karl Iagnemma’s On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction, Anthony Doerr’s The Shell Collectors, and Andrea Barrett’s Ship Fever and Servants of the Map, and novels such as Charles Baxter’s First Light. Writers, always searching for fresh forms of …

Four Stories, Brendan James O'Farrell

Masters Theses

This is a collection of short stories unified by themes of family and friendship, those intransigent bonds that persist despite our best wishes. A personal essay that explains my relationship with writing and outlines my literary influences precedes the collection.

The Buried, The Wasted, The Lost: Six Stories And Six Snapshots, Emily E. Thompson

Masters Theses

This is a collection of short stories unified by themes of loss, confusion and desperation. It is preceded by a personal essay that outlines my literary influences and how and why I write.

Sang The Sun, Katherine Martin Williams

Masters Theses

This novel is not about a man who knows exactly what he wants out of life. This novel does not have a readily identifiable narrative arc with characters who have readily identifiable motives compelling their actions. This novel is about a man, who despite having all kinds of outward signs of success, cannot figure out why he must leave it all to find something else in another place. Even after he’s found it, he’s not even sure what it is. In short, this novel is about real life.

Writing Back With Light: Postcolonial Film Adaptations Of The Literature Of Empire, Jerod R. Hollyfield

Masters Theses

Since decolonization began after World War II, citizens of colonized nations have attempted to subvert the literature of empire in order to write back to their oppressors and construct national identities. With visual media, such as film, surpassing print as the dominant form of artistic communication, many artists from former colonies have begun using the film medium as another channel to forge identities for their nations. However, in the wake of a decolonized world marked by the increasing power of multinational corporations, artists desiring to write back must address not only their colonizers but also a new form of imperialism …

A Costly Toll For Friendship: Material Rhetoric And The Oak Ridge International Friendship Bell, Jamie Elizabeth Farley

Masters Theses

This study presents a rhetorical analysis of the International Friendship Bell in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, with particular attention to how it relates to the World War II Manhattan Project. The rhetorical theories of identification, presence, and civic religion elucidated by Kenneth Burke, Chaїm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, and Gregory Clark, respectively, provide a theoretical amalgamation by which we can view and study the material object of the bell. As we use this combined theory to scaffold a rhetorical analysis of the bell, we discover several important ways in which the object of the bell, and its surrounding controversy, illustrate the …

Suttree Stagger, J.C. Tumblin

Cormac McCarthy Conference

No abstract provided.

"I Yearn For The Darkness": Epicurean Thoughts On Death In Mccarthy, Andrew Husband

Cormac McCarthy Conference

No abstract provided.

“The Lingering Scent Of Divinity” In "The Sunset Limited" And "The Road", Susan Tyburski

Cormac McCarthy Conference

To access the full text of the paper, please use the "Download" link to the right. To view the presentation video, please scroll down and press play (> button) on the gray player bar below.

'Golden Chalice, Good To House A God': Still Life In "The Road", Randall Wilhelm

Cormac McCarthy Conference

No abstract provided.

The End Of The Road: Pastoralism And The Post-Apocalyptic Waste Land In "The Road", Tim Edwards

Cormac McCarthy Conference

No abstract provided.

The Post-Southern Sense Of Place In "The Road", Chris Walsh

Cormac McCarthy Conference

No abstract provided.

Compassionate Mccarthy? "The Road" And Schopenhauerian Ethics, Euan Gallivan

Cormac McCarthy Conference

No abstract provided.

Hospitality In Cormac Mccarthy's "The Road", Phillip Snyder

Cormac McCarthy Conference

No abstract provided.

The Route And Roots Of "The Road", Wesley G. Morgan

Cormac McCarthy Conference

No abstract provided.

Full Circle: "The Road" Rewrites "The Orchard Keeper", Louis Palmer

Cormac McCarthy Conference

No abstract provided.

Mccarthy’S Sense Of Ending, Jay Ellis

Cormac McCarthy Conference

Keynote Address: McCarthy’s Sense of Ending

Knoxville & Appalachia In The Works Of Cormac Mccarthy, Chris Walsh

Cormac McCarthy Conference

A Pre-Conference Book Talk

The Value Of Mutual Respect: What We Learn From Student Complaints, Devan Cook

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This essay discusses the emotional labor of teaching and the ways writing programs can support that work.

Jaepl, Vol. 13, Winter 2007-2008, Kristie S. Fleckenstein, Linda T. Calendrillo

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Essays

Bell Hooks. Writing for Reconciliation: A Musing

Devan Cook. The Value of Mutual Respect: What We Learn from Student Complaints .

This essay discusses the emotional labor of teaching and the ways writing programs can support that work.

Elizabeth Gardner, Patricia Calderwood, and Roben Toroysan. Dangerous Pedagogy

Using data primarily drawn from undergraduate psychology classes, we reflect upon what humane but "dangerous" pedagogy illustrates about our teaching and our students' learning.

Karen Surman Paley. Applying "Men and Women for Others" to Writing about Archeology.

This essay explores one archeology professor's pedagogy of caring during a summer field study …

Writing For Reconciliation: A Musing, Bell Hooks

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This musing grew out of the AEPL Summer Conference in Berea, Kentucky, June 2006, at which bell hooks was the keynote speaker.

Front Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Editors' Message

Whitman writes in "Reconciliation":

For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead, I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin—I draw near, Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.

For Whitman, reconciliation is the "Word over all, beautiful as the sky," the deed that washes the world clean of the carnage of conflict. Without the act of reconciliation—the bringing together of that which …